[That bar, World of the Satisfyin Place, cream-colored sign with bullet holes. Bullet holes]
That bar, World of the Satisfyin Place, cream-colored sign with bullet holes. Bullet holes
in the back end of Villaneuve’s gold Lincoln, he was still getting residuals from his stint
as the keyboardist for the Shondelles, died young of Hep C, that was a cold blow. I fed him
pickles from a jar in his car and bled on the seat. State Line Supermarket burned. I sat
on an upended crate and ate pickles hot from the fire with the owner’s daughter. She was
giddy as people get when their lives go up in smoke. Her big eyes gleamed as they did
when she played Maria in The Sound of Music. I was Gretl, knocked unconscious by Friedrich
during the thunderstorm scene. Drive-in movie screen burned, I stood and watched, hands
on my hips. Tragic spectacle my realm. I its ruthless queen. Elvis died hard that day, burned
alive on a Ferris wheel with a smile on his face. My first thrill at the hands of another was when Twin sat on the small of my back and gave me a massage. This was before the white Jesus
kids got to her. Made her quit dancing, eating cheeseburgers. Snapped her glasses in half
and said if God wanted her to see he’d heal her eyes. Her hands were strong. Fingers long.
I didn’t have a word for that baroque pleasure, but I knew better than to thank her.
[He came to us all the way down here with us he trod the narrow]
He came to us all the way down here with us he trod the narrow
path to us he harrowed us he robbed us of our stuff and then he
bade us to adore the very robber who had robbed us of ourselves
he swept his empty hand across our shelves he commandeered
our dust he loosed the goats rejoined the milky mothers to their
calves he cut our drooping fruits in halves infringed upon our lust
he mesmerized the feral cats and charmed them from the pee-marked
corners of the barn into godawful light he strode across our ashes
and our blight the fields we’d burned to rid ourselves of parasitic
worms and ticks he snared our seeds and jarred our feeble bees
he gathered up our kids the ones who squeezed their dirty feet into
ill-begotten shoes the brood of meth and Thunderbird whose amniotic
sacs were tinted blue he harrowed us unbarrowed us he sparrowed us
and nailed us then he jacked our 7-Eleven and he hauled us up to heaven
[My private parts are many, my teeth are private, my tongue, the buoy]
My private parts are many, my teeth are private, my tongue, the buoy
of my brain bobbing in its cloistered sea, my eye’s vitreous detachment,
the lightning that crackled when the membrane broke inside my eye, I
was at a K-Mart roving among female sanitary products, each in its private
firing chamber, and a flock of crows rose in my vision and never since
has found a branch to land on, the flock’s voice private, my own voice box’s
wet surreptitious lid opens to the jewelry box ballerina who keeps my tune
whirling, and what is beneath her gauze skirt is private, and the hole in the crotch
of my pants, and my memory of the bloodstain on the crotch of the yoga
teacher’s sleek leggings private, my viscera, as if some scalpel could penetrate
me, some x-ray could make my fractures glow, my first love was not a football
player who wiped my tears with his dirty sock, who grew into a fireman
and fell through the roof, my first love was a phallus of cheap perfume,
a small black bottle from the mall, a clandestine phallus called femme fatale
[My favorite scent is my own funk, my least favorite scent, other]
My favorite scent is my own funk, my least favorite scent, other
people’s funk, and this, my friends, is why we cannot have nice
things. I value the advice I give others but I don’t like the advice
that comes my way unless it reflects what I would have done anyway.
You know how it goes. I like how my voice sounds in the car
when I sing along with Earth Wind & Fire but no one else can
pull it off, no one. My bad acting, when I acted, was charming.
I intended it to be bad, as a comment on the state of theater
in the 20th century. On days I don’t have to see anyone I don’t brush
my hair, I don’t wear underwear or shoes or chemical potions meant
to extinguish my funk, and in these times, I am nearly perfectly happy.
If you’re me, it’s luxurious to go unobserved. When asked the inevitable
question, whether I’d wear eyeliner if I was the last person on earth,
no, hell no. Eyeliner is war. When I’m alone I lay my weapons down.
